Snow
by Tetsui
Summary: It was all so simple back then, wasn't it?


**Author's Note:** I apologize in advance if the following one-shot offends anyone. This idea's been rumbling around inside my head for a while now and I'm ready to bring it to life. Here it is.

* *

**Snow**

**A Haruhi Suzumiya Fanfiction**

*** ***

**I wake up on this cold December morning. I get dressed and eat. I look at the calendar.**

**Today's the day.**

**I put on my coat and go outside.**

**I can still remember like it was yesterday.**

**I start walking, with the snow falling softly upon me.**

It was an average enough day. Wish it was warmer though.

The only weird thing was, that morning, I had found a letter in my foot locker. Again,

It said, 'Meet me in Class 2-5. I need to talk to you about something.'

It was left unsigned and written in nice, neat handwriting, similar to Nagato's but different somehow. It was close enough for me to think it was her anyway. I wonder what she wanted to talk about that she couldn't say in front of Haruhi.

**I pass by the train station and see the old cafe we all used to go to.**

**I remember each and everyday we spent there.**

**Me, and the SOS Brigade.**

**I wonder whatever happened to them all.**

**We lost touch after high school, and the last I saw of anyone, Itsuki had sent me a postcard from America. He was on his honeymoon with Kyouko. I hope their happy at least.**

**I can still see them all.**

**Haruhi, with her ever-energetic smile and rambunctious attitude that seemed to disappear after a while and let everyone see her for who she really was.**

**Mikuru with her soft, sweet voice, and her ever-loving smile that seemed to harden as time went on. I hope she's made a good life for herself.**

**Itsuki, with that damn smug smile of his. Always seeming to know everything, but could never see what was right in front of him. Soon after, he stopped smiling. I have to admit, I miss that smile.**

**Tsuruya, with her infectious laugh that seemed to spread like the Plague, and later, broke into uncontrollable sobs.**

**Yuki, with that ever-distant, stoic look on her face, that concealed a greater secret than we ever thought. And the single tear I saw on her face the last time I saw her.**

**I miss those days when everyone was carefree.**

**I start walking, with the snow a little thicker than it was.**

I get to the clubroom and see Nagato isn't here. That's odd in and of itself.

Everyone else was acting in a rather normal fashion, but the basic rhythm of the group seemed off. Everyone seemed, I don't know, nervous?

Haruhi didn't speak a word that day and when she left, nobody seemed to notice.

When Koizumi finally did see that she wasn't there anymore, he left, followed suite by the rest of us.

I headed back to Class 2-5.

When I opened the door, I saw what I was expecting.

Nagato was perched on a desk with a book in her hands.

**I stop by the flower shop and pick up a few bouquets of white lilies. Why white lilies? No real reason. It's just tradition.**

**I exited the shop and saw a familiar face.**

"**Hey, Sasaki."**

"**Oh, hello....Kyon? Is that you?"**

**She was dressed in a business outfit and looked like she was heading for work.**

"**Yeah, it's me."**

"**Oh. So how have you been?"**

"**Good, good. Nothing really interesting happening. You?"**

"**Pretty well. I had heard about what had happened. I meant to call, but...."**

"**It's okay. It was years ago."**

"**Yeah. What's with the flowers?"**

"**..."**

"**Oh, yeah. Today was it?"**

"**...Yeah."**

"**Oh. Sorry. Well, nice seeing you again."**

"**Yeah, you too."**

**I continue walking, the snow, just a little higher on the ground.**

"Hey, Nagato. You wanted to see me?"

"..."

She stood there, almost like she hadn't heard me.

"Nagato? You okay?"

I wave my hand between her and her book, which I'd found out snaps her out of these trances, and she blinked a few times before looking up at me. She snapped her book closed.

"Hello, Kyon."

"You wanted to talk?"

"...Yes."

"Okay."

"Something...has become a problem. To me personally. In the time that I have been here, it has only increased itself and I need your honest answer on a matter that shall end in one of two endings: the good ending or the bad ending. These are simply comparisons in the total equation, but are indeed, important."

I could understand most of what she meant by that. If something means anything to her personally I'm more than happy to help out. But, good ending? Bad ending? What's that mean?

"Okay, shoot."

"..."

"Nagato?"

"...Are you in love with Haruhi Suzumiya?"

In love?! With Haruhi?!

"Are we thinking of the same person here?"

"Yes. There are no other Haruhi Suzumiyas' in this school."

"Okay. No. No way in hell would that ever happen."

"..."

She stands there for a moment. I can see a plethora of activity going on in those helium eyes of hers. She blinks once, nods, then leaves.

I'm left there, standing alone in a dark room.

I leave too.

**I pass by the old mall that we filmed those movies at.**

**It had closed down not too long ago, and that was kinda depressing for everyone, but we still had other personal landmarks.**

**I pass by the old shrine and offer my prayers.**

**From this park, I can see the whole town.**

**All of it brings painful memories back to the surface.**

**The pool we had gone to over 15,000 times in one summer.**

**The field where the O-bon Festival had been held those times we went in the same summer and after.**

**All that blood.**

**Our old school, and the secrets that we hold there to this day.**

**The hill, where Itsuki's accident had happened.**

**The taller buildings where the war happened.**

**And no one knew what had happened, except us who were there.**

**Every single inch of this town has the SOS Brigade name printed on it somewhere.**

**The tragic dismemberment of the club, I guess Haruhi just couldn't take it anymore.**

**I turn away, like someone does when they stare into a light that's too bright.**

**I walk down toward my destination, and the snow is up past my feet.**

It had been about a year since Nagato had asked me that question. In all that time, I never once asked why she had asked me that.

Then one day, she left another letter.

This time, saying she wanted to meet at her house. She again, didn't show up for club that day.

After school, I walked in the direction of her apartment complex.

I buzzed and the door opened immediately.

I took the elevator up to her floor and knocked on her door.

It was already opened and slid in at my touch. Weird. She always closes the door.

I notice the lights are off.

This is getting kinda creepy.

I see Nagato, sitting there, in the dark, reading a book.

She was wearing her glasses.

"Nagato?"

She snapped the book closed, looked up and me, and pushed up her glasses.

"What's with the glasses?"

"I like them."

"Oh."

"Sit."

I take a seat.

The room is quite dark.

We sit there, very quiet for who knows how long.

"So, what do you want to talk about?"

"Last year."

"Okay. What about last year?"

"The question."

I know immediately what she's talking about.

"What about it?"

"Again."

"Huh?"

"I'm going to ask again."

"Why?"

"Because....I need to know."

"Okay then."

"Are you in love with Haruhi Suzumiya?"

"No. A year has not changed anything between me and here."

"Alright. Then, how about another question?"

"Sure. Anything."

"Are you....in love with me?

What?

"Nagato...you..."

The lights turn on and I can see a tear roll down her cheek.

"So this is what's been going on."

I turn around to see Haruhi standing there. Her voice seemed to be smaller than ever, barely a whisper.

I turned back to Nagato, in order to answer, but she gets up and runs out of her apartment.

I chase after her.

"Nagato! Wait!"

She easily outruns me.

I walk back and see Haruhi still standing there.

"So, you chose her, huh?"

"What?"

Before I can get another word in, she slaps me hard and walks away.

I just stand there.

**I finally get to my destination.**

**I walk past the cobblestones and headstones alike.**

**I get to my first stop here.**

**I walk over and look at the inscription.**

**'Haruhi Suzumiya'**

**'1995-2013'**

**'Never forgotten. May she search the stars for eternity.'**

**A simple epitaph that only her friends and family would understand.**

**A place one bouquet by the two others on the stone.**

**Itsuki must have been by.**

**I move on to the next.**

**I find the next with little difficulty.**

**'Miki Tsuruya'**

**'1994-2017'**

**'Sometimes the strongest light hides the deepest darkness.'**

**She was the one who really surprised me. Out of all of us, I never saw that coming.**

**I place one of the bouquets down and move on to the real reason why I came here.**

**I move past the cobblestones to the very edge of the cemetery.**

**There, a small marble angel was carved into the stone.**

**I place the last of the bouquets down.**

**'Yuki Nagato'**

**'1996-2012'**

**'She was snow, how quickly she melted in the spring.'**

**I can feel the tears in my eyes.**

**I leave this miserable place of death and walk home. And trudge through the snow.**

Shortly after, they found Nagato's body.

She had cut her wrists and her carotid artery.

Haruhi stopped showing up to school.

The club went abandoned and everything went to hell.

We all attended Nagato's funeral. It was very.....sad to say the least.

I though I saw Haruhi out of the corner of my eye, my could never get close enough to see.

When graduation rolled around, Haruhi never showed up for her diploma.

That July, we all decided to check up on Haruhi.

We got her address and tracked her house down.

She lived in a small apartment.

When we went up, we knocked but no one answered.

I turned the knob. It wasn't locked.

"Haruhi?" I called out.

We went from room-to-room looking for her.

There were pictures everywhere of her parents and various SOS Brigade activities.

It was Mikuru who found her.

We heard her crying and when we got there, we saw it.

Haruhi's body, hanging from a noose.

I turned away and Koizumi vomited into a nearby wastebasket.

We got the body down and there was a note in her hand.

It was those same symbols. 'I Am Here.'

Then I remembered. Today's Tanabata.

I whisper into her ear.

"I am John Smith."

I really hope that will help her, wherever she is.

We were the only ones who came to her funeral.

Whenever we met after that, nobody was the same.

We returned, each year, with white lilies, and placed them on the graves.

When they found Tsuruya dead in her mansion a few years later, with only her laughter written down, we knew then that our lives were changed forever.

Me, Koizumi, and Mikuru, the last of the SOS Brigade, made a pact then. To return to the school that held so many memories, and burn it.

That night, the fire was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

We never got caught.

**I get back to my home and close the door.**

**I take off my coat and eat some lunch.**

**I sit in a chair.**

**The reason I tell this to you, is it that someone should know about our lives.**

**Go to the ruins of the old school, and you'll find the other ten journals.**

**I send this to you, Mr. Tanigawa, as my last testament.**

**I pull a gun from the nearby counter and put it against my head.**

"**Yuki, the answer is Yes."**

…

…

**Bang.**

End


End file.
